Silverlight/Moonlight related Questions

[Martin Husovec]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anybody could help us here with these two questions
which both relate to Silverlight/Moonlight. So:

1. What is the cross-platform availability of Silverlight? Any
experience?

2. Do you have any information about the deal between Microsoft and
Novel concerning Silverlight and Moonlight. Is is true that Microsoft
tries to release the specifications with some delay? So actually the
Moonlight can not work well even if the community tries. What is the
overall background of Moonlight development & release.

Your help would be highly appreciated,

Martin
--
Martin Husovec
Free Software Foundation Europe [http://fsfe.org]
Assistant to the President [[phone]]
Your donation powers our work! [http://fsfe.org/donate/]

Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. is a German Verein registered
at the Registergericht Hamburg (VR 17030).
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[Michal Docekal]

Hello,

Post by Martin Husovec
1. What is the cross-platform availability of Silverlight? Any
experience?

A little. I looked at it a while ago. For GNU/Linux, there are some
browser plugins (Moonlight project), but they didn't work out of the
box. Firefox marked that plugin as incompatibile, so I had to disable
the version check to make it work. Chromium didn't work at all.

Using Firefox, I tested it on two things - Microsoft's smooth streaming
demo site (silverlight-based media player adapting to client's CPU and
network bandwith), which worked, but performance couldn't have been
much worse (slideshow instead of playback) and one Windows-based media
publishing system, which uses silverlight for playing presentations,
but playback didn't work there at all (I'm not sure if it is a
Moonlight issue, though).

I didn't test it anywhere else and I quickly removed it from my
machine afterwards.

I should also mention that playing videos through Moonlight requires
downloading proprietary codecs (which is handled by the plugin).

Post by Martin Husovec
2. Do you have any information about the deal between Microsoft [...]

No idea there.

Regards,
Michal Docekal



On Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:26:03 +0100

Post by Martin Husovec
Hi there,
I was wondering if anybody could help us here with these two questions
1. What is the cross-platform availability of Silverlight? Any
experience?
2. Do you have any information about the deal between Microsoft and
Novel concerning Silverlight and Moonlight. Is is true that Microsoft
tries to release the specifications with some delay? So actually the
Moonlight can not work well even if the community tries. What is the
overall background of Moonlight development & release.
Your help would be highly appreciated,
Martin

[Michal Docekal]

Hello,

Post by Martin Husovec
1. What is the cross-platform availability of Silverlight? Any
experience?

A little. I looked at it a while ago. On GNU/Linux, there are some
browser plugins (Moonlight project), but they didn't work out of the
box for me. Firefox marked that plugin as incompatibile, I had to
disable the version check to make it work. Chromium didn't work at all.

I tested it on two things - Microsoft's smooth streaming demo site
(silverlight-based media player adapting to client's CPU and network
bandwith), which turned to be a disaster (it worked, but performance
couldn't have been much worse) and one Windows-based media publishing
system, which uses silverlight for playing presentations, but playback
didn't work at all (I'm not sure if it is a Moonlight issue, though).

I should also mention that playing videos through Moonlight requires
downloading proprietary codecs.

I didn't test it anywhere else, and I quickly removed it from my
machine afterwards.

Post by Martin Husovec
2. Do you have any information about the deal between Microsoft and
Novel concerning Silverlight and Moonlight. Is is true that Microsoft
tries to release the specifications with some delay? So actually the
Moonlight can not work well even if the community tries. What is the
overall background of Moonlight development & release.

No idea there.

Regards,
Michal Docekal

Dne Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:26:03 +0100

Post by Martin Husovec
Hi there,
I was wondering if anybody could help us here with these two questions
1. What is the cross-platform availability of Silverlight? Any
experience?
2. Do you have any information about the deal between Microsoft and
Novel concerning Silverlight and Moonlight. Is is true that Microsoft
tries to release the specifications with some delay? So actually the
Moonlight can not work well even if the community tries. What is the
overall background of Moonlight development & release.
Your help would be highly appreciated,
Martin